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Williamsburg "Ninjas" Seem... Confused
By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 24, 2010
Modified Apr 24, 2010
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 24, 2010
Modified Apr 24, 2010
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The mysterious, black-clad troupe of troublemakers—who most recently smashed a tea shop window on Bedford Avenue—has spoken. Or rather, has emailed. The full press release is after the jump, and attempts to describe the method behind their madness.
It says, in part: "Dressed in matching black skirts and masks, dozens gathered on Saturday evening for an anti-capitalist Take Back the Night march, stopping traffic on Bedford Avenue, overturning trashcans, and breaking windows. We are not asking for a right to the streets, we are taking them; we are not asking for advertisements that do not objectify women, we’re destroying the commercial mechanisms that objectify women; we are not appealing to male power for an end to rape, but threatening: 'If you touch me, I will fucking kill you.'"
They go on to declare their refusal to be "housewives and fuck-toys," but what they do not do is explain why they broke the window of a little tea shop. Sooo basically, fighting violence with confusing, misdirected, messy, violent outbursts. Well done ladies? [via FreeWilliamsburg]
WE’LL SHOW YOU CRAZY BITCHES: TAKE BACK THE NIGHT
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK - Dressed in matching black skirts and masks, dozens gathered on Saturday evening for an anti-capitalist Take Back the Night march, stopping traffic on Bedford Avenue, overturning trashcans, and breaking windows. Tired of tamely shouting slogans on campus sidewalks, we took the night back by taking it, refusing the structural mechanisms that create rapists and their victims.
Although in recent years Take Back the Night has been co-opted by liberal feminists, it has its roots in the widespread unrest of Italy in the late seventies. In 1976, a seventeen-year-old was gang-raped in Rome. A year later, when her case went to trial, she was gang-raped again by the same men: and this time, her whole body was slashed with razors in an attempt to keep her silent. Within hours, fifteen thousand women mobilized, uniformly dressed like the sex workers common to the district; “NO MORE MOTHERS, WIVES AND DAUGHTERS: LET’S DESTROY THE FAMILIES!” was the cry heard in the street. They came just short of burning the neighborhood to the ground.
Forty years later, we marched again, to refuse the violence that continues to force us to be housewives and fuck-toys and mothers and daddy’s girls, to refuse to understand women’s oppression in the private sphere as a simple cultural or ideological matter. We address capitalism and patriarchy as one intrinsically interconnected system. We are not asking for rights: we are demanding something else entirely.
A woman on the street stopped and attempted to begin an argument: “Why are you doing this?” A swift reply: “Because we have grown tired of rape and makeup.” The woman responds: “Just get drunk and get laid - deal with it.” But this is no longer enough for us. We are not asking for a right to the streets, we are taking them; we are not asking for advertisements that do not objectify women, we’re destroying the commercial mechanisms that objectify women; we are not appealing to male power for an end to rape, but threatening: “If you touch me, I will fucking kill you.”
For once, the mechanisms that create and maintain identities of womanhood were refused, and our desires were our own, our bodies were our own, and our violence was our own.
Tagged
ninjas
Take Back The Night
tea shop
violence
williamsburg
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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